Photoshop CS6: Top 5 Features for Photographers

Though it was many years ago, I can still remember the excitement that greeted the launch of Photoshop 3 – this was the first version to offer layers, forever changing the way we work with digital images. At the time there were even some within Adobe who regarded Photoshop as being essentially feature complete. I mean, what else could customers want Photoshop to do?

Well, quite a lot of course, as all the subsequent upgrades will testify. But today, more than 20 years and 13 major versions later (not including Elements) one can again rightfully ask, 'What more do we really need from Photoshop?' Or, to put it bluntly, 'Do I need to upgrade to CS6?' After all, Photoshop CS5 is still a very good program. But with CS5 it seemed the Photoshop team was tasked primarily with under-the-hood changes necessary to modernize the code, particularly on the Mac side. This time around they have been able to devote more resources to adding brand new features as well as simpler JDI (just do it) enhancements. So there's actually a lot that's new for photographers in CS6. Here then is a run-down of my personal Top 5 new features in Photoshop CS6. Click the links below to go straight to the different sections, or continue down this page to read the five-page article in order.

Adaptive Wide Angle filter

For me the most compelling - if under appreciated - feature in CS6 is the brand new Adaptive Wide Angle filter. This new addition to Photoshop's filter menu makes use of embedded lens profile metadata along with puppet warp technology introduced in CS5 to enable user-controlled perspective corrections. It has been designed specifically with ultra wide-angle and fisheye lenses in mind.

This is one of those features where you perhaps didn’t realise you needed it until you start using it. Over the last few months I have been able to remaster photos that were shot with extreme wide-angle and fisheye lenses to achieve a far more natural-looking visual perspective. I have been particular impressed, however, by the filter’s ability to process composite images. In the example shown below I shot a sequence of photographs and used the Photomerge tool to create an ultra wide angle view blended composite.

The important thing to know from the start is that the technique demonstrated below won’t work with Photomerge-generated composites created in CS5 or earlier; they must be created using CS6 to allow the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter to read the required embedded lens data.

This composite was created in Photoshop CS6 from four separate exposures by going to File>Automate>Photomerge. I used the cylindrical projection method and ensured that the merged image layers were flattened before proceeding to the next step.

Going to Filter>Adaptive Wide Angle Filter I added constraint lines to define scene elements that needed to be made straight. The filter accomplishes this task by reading the lens EXIF metadata that gets embedded at the time the photomerge is created, which is why the composite must be created using the CS6 version of Photomerge.

Here you can see the final result, in which the composite image has much less perspective distortion.

As you can see, by applying constraint lines via the filter dialog I was able to produce a perspective-corrected result. I have been well and truly won over by this new feature. I would say this is a must-have feature for any landscape/architectural photographer.

Comments

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wow. Those blur tools are unreal and useful in my line of work. I'd like to see them ported over to Lightroom, but it's definitely worth it to open photoshop for that level of adjustment. Did they ever get around to adding the Unblur Features that they debuted at the preview event?

Adobe's greed may well push folks away from their excellent ACR! If the trend continues, many of us will drift away from ACR (no need for future upgrades of PS CS6). As a former ACR beta tester I am very disappointed. As a photographer I am very confused where PS CS6 is headed - and why! Thomas has more money than he can spend in 100 lifetimes - and good for him! But, meanwhile, Photoshop is taking a beating by many photography groups, forums, blogs, media, and many pros. Will the stock be next?

Apple has to work extra hard if they want to make something that can compete with Adobe Photoshop.

I have used Aperture before and I just find it too basic and under-developed. IMHO, for an Apple product the user interface really sucks. I think Lightroom is a better alternative.

One option I think would be for Apple to purchase Corel, Nik Software or a similar Company for the brain power in the image processing field (and patents like Control Points) and come up with a really usable interface that doesn't need a 600 pages book to learn.

In the meantime right now I think there is not much more than Photoshop for professional image work. If you have a better alternative let me know. I'm willing to explore options. BTW, GIMP doesn't count - it's free but it's also another user interface nightmare.

What are they doing? They made Lightroom wonderful and affordable. I'm a photographer first and pixel diddler second so of course I got LR4 and absolutely love and praise it. I have CS5 and it is good. I've hardly scratched the surface and out comes CS6 ...at great ongoing expense.I simply can't spend that kind of money monthy on something I only use to edit 2 or 3 % of my work. It seems like the Lightroom group got their development and marketing acts together while the CS team came up with a money extraction machine.The price structure, cloud system and lack of support for older versions (sure I can buy a new camera AND new Photoshop to edit the photos) tells me they are setting themselves up for a big fall. Some of the inexensive low cost programs are going to suddently become practical through performance improvements and a groundswell of rejection and adoption of those programs will leave the CS team asking themselves "why did we choose to bite the hand that feeds us"

"...a must-have feature for any landscape/architectural photographer...", I think for architectural photographer in the sense of technical geometry correctness may benefit from it, but for a landscape photo art, where any geometry correction would destroy the art itself, and would consider the lens as garbage since it cannot produce image "correctly".

I do graphic designs, and sometimes photography. With newer CSes, I benefit a lot more in designs or manipulations, than photography. CSes are less for photographers, IMO.

New features can be good in PShop, but I'm more old school and the older versions still work here for general photo editing. I wish camera makers would make their cameras capture stuff like I see it via the controls for once so we needn't have to edit our photos so much afterwards. Capturing a good photo of a moment in time should not require post-processing in this day of high technology. All the stupid new gizmo options on digi-cameras are useless if they don't capture the moment well by the user and PP work is required.

I got a survey from Adobe and after the questions about paying a monthy fee instead of purchasing, they asked how often do you upgrade? I thought it was interesting that one of the options for answering was "every other version" which seems to be about right.

As far back as I remember you always had the ability to name/rename a layer. This was possible in CS5, but some idiots, managed to take away this option, or hid it so it is hard to find. Why is it so common lately for programs to take away perfectly useful and important features (or change where they are) in subsequent newer "improved" versions ?

Thanks for the information. I was looking for it to work the same way as it used to in CS5 etc, where it was a menu option after right clicking. So I never tried a left mouse click. With Windows Explorer you right click and choose Rename.

I guess I would claim that it was there but hidden from anyone who expected it to work the way it used to.

It's important to realize that Photoshop is a product aimed at a wide audience of photographers/graphic designers. I'm a designer who values any tool that will help me quickly adapt an image for a particular use. As an example, let's say I have a great photo of a couple but it's cropped too tightly and I need more background. The content aware tool is a great way to quickly and easily add the additional image area I need. I agree for a fine art photographer and sometimes a designer too, there are more elegant ways to retouch a photo. On a deadline however it's a time saver.

A few things are the ability to take advantage of 64 bit architecture for better memory se (only 4gb max in cs3) , many useful compositing/masking features (quick selection - yes!), many useful camera raw features etc..

Once you start using the new features you can't remember not having them - I agree it's an expensive habit.

But cs3 was a while ago and certainly you're getting your money's worth.

Photoshop 4.0 (not the CS4) introduced excellent typography options, also the the introduction of CMYK color profiles who were easy applicable so the color correction became easy it should be etc.. Today, I'm using CS5 and my workflow is mostly the same since PS5. Your creativity is not in conjunction with the version of PS you use. It is your imagination that creates beautiful photos, designs..

I would love to see ACR incorporate film negative linear gamma 'raw' scans into its algorithms. Currently I'm fudging about using ColorPerfect plugin via VueScan, and the neg scans are messing with the Lightroom digital file workflow. It would be great to incorporate this into ACR :)

Adobe Photoshop is the most bloated piece of software on the market... photographic or otherwise. If they'd spend half the energy on streamlining the product they already have, vs. continually releasing a stream of releases with minor tweaks, they might have a much larger audience.

Yeah, I get it about those who have already invested years in learning the hidden secrets of the megalith. Frankly, I'd rather spend the time photographing.

When are people going to say enough with the frosting. Please bake a new cake?

How are they not streamlining the program when they've rewritten so many functions for multicore and GPU, and rewritten so many features to be easier and simpler? The crop tool is simpler. The lens corrections are far superior to the old "perspective crop." The Print dialog is much better than it used to be. Sometimes it seems like people are just complaining and not really paying attention.

This is a joke, right? (content aware) I had PS CS6 for 25 days. Sent it back and re-installed PS CS5. Too many bugs. Maybe the revised PS CS6 will have these corrected. For whatever reason Adobe has always in the past (anyway) always comes up with the .1 or .2 version that fixes many bugs.

Not much difference. I've been correcting spherical distortion for years using a negative value spherize filter in PS6. I do like that you can selectively adjust distortion in CS6 ! Show us something more dramatic ?

Concerning HDR editing in 32 bits you don't need CS6 : if you have CS5 and LR4.1 you can do the same : choose the 3,5,7 photos you want to combine and then choose "Merge to HDR" once this is done in PS, choose save as a 32 bits file; when you are back to LR4.1, you will be able to tweak that 32bits HDR with process 2012 just as if you were using CS6 and ACR 7.1 ; indeed, you have ACR 7.1 in LR4.1.

CS2 has some serious bugs in scripting and CS3/CS4 added plug-in support to scripting. CS2 is not without its own problems. As for miracles there in God's domain no man will ever be able to create a universe. CS2, CS4,CS5 and CS6 have more bugs then CS3.

Seriously, now, can someone tell me why Photoshop is necessary for photographers at all? It's designed for graphics folks. I haven't found a need for it for processing photos for a decade. LR does what I need for 999 out of 1000 shots, and the other .1% can be dealt with by PS Elements no problem.

I concur with ljfinger entirely. CS is not a tool for photographers. I don't even see the need for Elements, what with a tool as powerful as Lightroom (or its super smart alternative, the DxO Optics Pro).

You've obviously never used one of the newer version. Content-Aware fill, newer versions of Camera RAW, the photomerge/stitching/HDR tools, and more are all light years ahead of CS2. I upgraded from CS2 to CS4 and it was worth it for better ACR alone. Then I upgraded to CS5.5 and was wowed by how much better it did many things I regularly use Photoshop to do. You should download the demo.

If you look at the new feature list on Wikipedia, the "miracle features" list actually accelerated after CS2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_version_history

If you don't need the features that were added after CS2, all that means is that your needs are simple, and Photoshop was never the program you should have been using in the first place. You were overpaying because you were over-speccing your tool, like buying an expensive wrench that is supposed to be for racing teams, not homeowners.

Furthermore, if you tried to pay for enough plug-ins to match what CS6 does, you would have paid more in plug-ins than for the retail price of CS6.

I'm always fascinated by the logic that revolves around "if I don't need it no-one should need it". It usually followed up by "If you do need it then something's wrong with you." I assure you that Photoshop offers so many features that photographers need. One use - in my case -is that frequently have to photograph dark rooms with movies and videos playing. This requires masking layering and compositing. New features like quick selection etc helps take the sting out.

Need some advice. I am planning on buying either the Canon 5D Mark iii r Nikon D800 very soon - not because I am a pro but really because I don't want to upgrade for a few years. Can someone tell me if software choice is dependent on the hardware, or are application like Adobe Photoshop CS6 suitable for workflow of either of these cameras? Thanks

I'm unfortunately an occasional user of CS4. Could anyone tell me whether they have fixed the following problems in CS6:1. Have Adobe finally managed to implement the RH mouse control to, for example, enable the setting of a clone point without having to simultaneously dab the alt key whilst pressing the LH mouse control?2. Does the overlaying of images for stitching or stacking now work properly?3. Does PS6 manage to stitch more than two images correctly and in less than half an hour on an i5 machine?4. Do the stitch projections now work.5. Have they provided a NX2 style selection pen to replace the almost completely useless lasso tool?I'll carry on using PTGUI, NX2 and Corel until these problems are fixed.BTW I'm not trolling. I'm genuinely disgusted that Adobe can ask 650GBP (or 250GBP for an upgrade) for such half-baked software.

you can't create HDR files within ACR.you have to first merge the files with different exposure into a 32bitHDR file using another program.. for example: photoshop / Photomatix etc.. the update only allows ACR to recognize HDR files and give you more control over the file.

Yeah.. and Apple has a 10MP front facing camera available in an iphone already.. but it won't be released for 5 more years because they need to first release the iphones with a 5MP, 6MP, 7MP, and 8MP camera..

Companies are in the game to make money.... if you don't like to pay, then use freeware/shareware...

Competition drives quality and features, and Photoshop has become so much the de facto standard that few people choose any alternatives. They do exist, but mostly end up playing catch-up, or switch to producing Photoshop plugins instead...

I'm not picking on you or anyone else, but all the comments I hear about bugs makes me think that either you're trying to run a new piece of software on an aging machine or you're having problems with the software that you can't figure out. It's not a simple program to learn and after 10+ years I'm still running into challenges. I have a two step process when I run into problems. 1. I'll take advantage of Adobe's Help search and 2. If I'm really stuck, I'll post a question on Adobes web-based Forum - http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshopJust like here at DPReview, there's a whole community of Photoshop people willing to help you.

Have you any idea how bad this patch tool example is? You've ended up with two identical rippled areas in the water where the tripod legs were eliminated. What is needed here is a more 'content aware' photographer/editor!

OK, I have to say: the artificial radial blur and tilt shift blur are things I truly dislike. When blur has nothing to do with focus it just makes me annoyed, and detracts from the image in my opinion. These "features" are not a draw, to me.

Ditto what Art said. I'm a illustrator and photographer both and can't understand the flack that Photoshop is getting in this thread. I use it constantly in both endeavors, and it works well. Lightroom may be just fine, but I've used Photoshop beginning with version 7.0 and have few complaints.

The price of this software has always kept me away. I prefer to use PP as little as possible and so bought Corel Paint Shop Pro X3 for $30.Does heaps more than I need. So more than happy with that thanks.To use CS I think one would need to be a very serious PP user.

Problems arise when a company has a monopoly and needs to raise revenue by forcing people to buy upgrades. Get a new digital camera and you have to purchase the latest version of Photoshop. My first version of Photoshop was 3 and that was because Adobe bought out the software company whose product I was using and killed the software. They did that with the company that produced the product that became Lightroom, Adobe did it with Pagemaker, and they did it with Macromedia which produced Freehand and Flash. Adobe has through the years bought up its competition until now there are no competitors for Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, etc. and Apple is not really a competitor when they only produce software versions that will run only on Apple computers.

This is reflected in the price of the Adobe software and their low level of customer service.